


Feachtas

by TaFuilLiom



Series: Saolré [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-09 22:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13490712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: Corpses, with their chalky pallor, chilled skin, and fixed eyes. She imagines a zipper lowering, parting the DEO logo on that body bag, and familiar brown eyes- dead- staring up at her.- The battle.





	Feachtas

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't the companion piece, but a lot of you wanted to know what happened during the battle, and you also liked the formatting of the other fic, so here is a little interlude to keep you ticking. There's probably loads of mistakes, I'm sleep-deprived. Gets a little dark in places, but nothing too much, chickens x

**_Alex_ **

The sword rests against her knee.

The transports are deafening. While the helicopter rotors make conversation a shouting match, the rides to and from missions are usually filled with agents bantering and going over last minute details.

This time, no one speaks. They clutch their weapons, stare at their boots. Silent.

Maggie is beside her, knees bouncing, palms rubbing together. Alex can't deny that seeing her in a DEO uniform makes her heart clench. She deliberates over whether Maggie had caught the hickies in the shower this morning, the ones left around her ribs from last night. 

They started all this on a hot day with hot tempers. _Fitting that it would end the same way._

Flirting with the line of where they stand today-

_possibly their last interaction-_

Alex reaches over and squeezes her thigh, hoping to quell some of that anxiety.  

Maggie jumps at the contact, but doesn’t shrug her off. Instead, she surveys the rest of the serious faces before leaning over. Alex presses her hand to her headset, straining to hear over the chopping blades overhead.

“Hey. Important last minute question,” Maggie shouts. “Mexico or Canada?”

Without the constraints of normal social interaction, without the barriers of a usual break up, Alex answers straight away as she gets the reference. She savours the distraction from the swooping nerves inside.

“I _might_ have gone to Mexico for our honeymoon. But not Canada. Not at that time of year.”

Maggie nods, adjusting the belt around her waist. She says something that gets lost in the roar of the blades, and Alex asks her to repeat it a little louder. She does, laying a hand over Alex’s on her thigh;

“I could have convinced you.”

Alex chuckles, thinking about how exactly Maggie used to convince her to do things she wasn’t keen on. “We both would have had cabin fever. Literally. We would have gone full _Shining_ on each other before the week was over.”

When Maggie laughs over the noisy rotors, it’s almost like old times, and Alex relaxes back into her seat.

She wouldn’t mind if this is one of the last sounds that she hears.

 

**_Winn_ **

He transfers to the desert base in the morning, arriving before everyone leaves for the fight.

He carries with him a small bundle of things that people gave him for safe keeping, for whatever reason. If the world ends, he will end with it, but he likes the idea that people trust him with their prized possessions.

But then something severs communications as soon as the helicopters touch down. The few engineers that stayed behind at base work with him to try and get them back online. Solution after solution fails, and after forty minutes of frustration he launches himself away from his console, digging his hands deep into his hair.

He has let them down. The static radio silence tells him nothing.

He looks at his bundle in despair, separating each object. Touching each one with reverence, he thinks about the person who gave it to him.

The brochure that James had in his pocket- _“I was planning a vacation, and I like the places I’ve circled, so kept it safe.”_

Kara’s glasses- _“They’ll get too dusty!”_

Maggie’s detective badge- _“If I get it lost out there, I’m never making Sergeant.”_

The one that confuses him is Alex’s object. She had pressed the small silver key into the palm of his hand as they said goodbye, saying, _“If I don’t come back, give this to Kara. She’ll understand.”_

He picks up the key, recognising it as the style of key that would fit into the DEO cabinets and drawers. There could be classified evidence in Alex’s desk. After all, she is in line to lead the organisation one day. Maybe there is a secret gift in there.

But why would Alex keep a gift in her work desk? And why would Kara have the key if-

_“If I don’t come back-”_

Oh. Now he gets it.

His stomach sinks.

 

**_James_ **

He thinks he might be dying.

The horrified look on Lucy’s face as she kneels down tells him that he is probably right.

“James,” she whispers, touching his face. Tears well up as the other hand presses somewhere on his torso. “James, stay awake.”

All around them, people are calling on her, but she only has eyes for him. He hates how full of sorrow they are.

“Lucy,” he rasps. “They need you.”

“James-”

“Go, I’ve got him til the medics get here.”

Lucy looks up at the voice, seeming to flirt with refusing, but then nods. She gives him one more longing look, and then takes off. Then Maggie is above him. “Hey, how’s it going?”

She asks as if it’s about the weather, or what his plans are for the weekend. As if there isn’t screaming and fighting all around. As if there aren’t booming guns shaking the earth beneath him.

“You gotta stay awake for me, alright, Olsen?”  She flattens her hands on his abdomen. “Can’t believe you got hurt with these rock hard abs.”

He splutters, liquid bubbling up from his mouth. It must be blood, if Maggie’s cockiness flashing to alarm is anything to go by. Everything is growing fuzzy, and the sand underneath him is so _warm_. He thinks he could slip away into sleep, if he just closes his eyes.

“You know, you were right yesterday. I’ve haven’t called or kept in contact.” Her voice is grating, forced-chipper as she presses his stomach a little harder, and the aching sensation lifts him back up into consciousness. “How about we hang out next weekend? We could go to a ballgame?”

He takes a rattling breath, choking the words out. “You hate...baseball.”

“Nicely remembered. It’s not half as good as watching cute women play softball, right?”

“And...National City’s team...sucks.”

Maggie gives him a dazzling smile, and with those dimples, it isn’t hard for him to see why Alex fell in love with her. He coughs out a laugh at the very thought, warm liquid trekking down his cheek.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t go for the hotdogs, Olsen,” Maggie says. “Or you can, anyway.”

He thinks she is about to say something more when she’s thrown through the air, and for him, everything goes black.

 

**_Clark_ **

These things they face, these creatures, bourne of Earth but sent from space, wreck havoc on the US military forces.

The DEO has weapons that can combat the alien hybrids, but they weren’t enough to fight an entire army raised from the desert, so the President ordered in reinforcements, who were not prepared in the slightest.

_Those claws are the problem_ , Clark thinks, throwing his latest match into the sand, where it shudders twice and disintegrates. _Humans are so scared of sharp, piercing objects._  

A cracking sound splits the air, and then the wind gets up, kicking dust into more and more severe swirls. He launches himself into the sky for a better look, searing a few of the aliens with heat vision on his ascent.

Towering higher with each second, a raging sandstorm forms. The wind billows, growing it, and then another crack, and it goes up in flames. It careens through the desert, and Clark realises its heading towards the direction of National City.

_He’s going to burn it down first._

In a moment, Kara up is beside him, chest heaving as she drinks in the chaos on the ground below. From this height, the picture is much darker. Bodies are littered across the open space, aliens pushing forward. Feral, they tear through the ranks that stand against them.

“People are dying,” she chokes, tears threatening.

_You won’t be able to save everyone here,_ he wants to tell her, but her mood is already in a tailspin, spiralling down into despair, and they have more urgent matters.

“We have to go to National City. Our freeze breath won’t be enough to stop this.”

Something steals Kara’s attention away from him; a figure being thrown through the air.

“Maggie!”

Kara looks ready to nosedive to the ground, but Clark puts himself in her way. The wind is roaring around them, and he shouts over the top of it.

“There’s no time!”

“Alex won’t forgive me if-”

“Kara, we have to go back to National City! We have to get people off the streets, or at least to shelter!”

Her hair whips around her, eyes wild as they dart around the ground. He grabs her elbow, remembering his own promise to Alex. “Kara!”

“But-”

“She’ll be fine. We have to go, now!”

With a torn expression, Kara takes off towards National City, zipping ahead of the fiery sandstorm. Clark scans for Alex, for J’onn, and then settles on Maggie’s body laying in the dirt below.

He mutters a quick meditation to Rao, and then shoots off for the city.

 

**_Maggie_ **

She’s on the ground, and all she hears is ringing.

When she opens her eyes to the smokey red sky, she sees people scrambling around her, but she can’t hear them. There is only ringing.

She tries to sit up, but the urge to vomit puts her back on her elbows.

A face swims in front of her, a DEO medic kneeling beside her. Their mouth is moving, but she shakes her head, disorientated.

Another set of hands gently encourage her to lie back down, and with a panic, she _realises_ -she’s gone deaf. She can feel vibrations, but that is it. Unable to get a full deep breath in, she grips the first medic’s arm. He tries to calm her down, but no soothing words reach her.

The other presses some gauze to her head, and the shooting pain takes her out-

When she comes to, she’s in the back of a rumbling black vehicle. The ringing is still there, but she can hear the crunch of rocks under the wheels, each jerk of the vehicle making her head spin.

Her relief is short-lived. When her eyes get adjusted, she recognises the sleek outline of two black body bags, the white DEO crest at chest height. Her breath stutters.

“She’s alive,” a voice says faintly.

Maggie finds Sara Lance in the darkness, sitting at the foot of her stretcher.

“For now?” Maggie asks, glad she can hear herself speak, even if it sounds distant.

Sara smirks. “I can’t tell you anything else, it wouldn’t be fair.”

It’s hardly reassuring, but her stomach is clenching and she concentrates on her breathing. The air in the vehicle is humid, clinging to her skin, and she barely suppresses her nausea.

“Shouldn’t you be back out there?” Maggie asks, conscious that she has to raise her voice to hear herself. When Sara holds up her wrist, set in a makeshift splint, she scoffs. “Thought it would take more than a bent wrist to take you out of a fight.”

Sara grins, dropping her wrist back to her lap. “I made a promise to Alex to get you back safe and sound. I figure I owe it to her.”

_When?_ Maggie thinks, the night before foggy in her mind.

“You gonna throw up, dimples?”

The stench of death is thick in the van, and Maggie swallows down the rolling in her stomach. “I’m fine.”

“Uh huh,” Sara replies, sounding unconvinced. “Wait til you see that crack in your head. You might change your mind at the sight of your own brain.”

Maggie’s hand flies to the gauze on her head, and the bolt of pain that shoots through her in response makes her cry out, the ringing in her ears getting louder. The nausea climbs to her throat.

“I’m kidding, Maggie,” Sara says, subtly reaching for a silver bowl at the bottom of the stretcher. “And I thought Alex was the jumpy one.”

Maggie looks at the body bags to the right of her again. How many times she has watched coroners zip up corpses? How many times has she watched a family grieving as they identified a body of a loved one? How many times has she sorted through crime scene photos, still seeing them as she closed her eyes to sleep that night?

Corpses, with their chalky pallor, chilled skin, and fixed eyes.

She imagines a zipper lowering, parting the DEO logo on that body bag, and familiar brown eyes- _dead-_ staring up at her.

Bile rises.

“Hey, Lance?” she murmurs, so low that she can’t hear herself, as a cold sweat breaks out all over.

“Yes?”

“I think I am gonna throw up.”

 

**_J’onn_ **

He had taken a moment that morning to both comfort and encourage Alex, seeing her as both a subordinate, and as a daughter. He had lost two daughters on Mars; he wasn’t willing to lose a third. Not if he could help it.

He had watched the helicopters leave, standing with Kara and Clark on the helipad until it was only the three of them left. He had reassured Kara that everything was going to be alright, even if he wasn’t sure himself, because that is what she needed to hear.

Now, all communications are down, and it is clear in the haphazard formations of troops. Medical personnel struggle to the wounded, the defence in a shambles. They are all trying as hard as they can to fight back, but without connection, they’re individuals scrambling without direction.

He runs into Alex three times during the fight. The first time, he stops her from losing an arm, swiping a claw away from behind her and dispatching the attacker.

“Thanks,” she breathes, spinning around. Sweat beads on her skin, the desert dust sticking in patches from where its come in contact.

The second, he worries as he catches sight of her slay two aliens at once, and then stagger off balance. Blood mats the hair at her temple.

“You’re tiring, Alex,” he warns.

Her eyes are fierce, but her mouth twists. She _knows_ he’s right. He senses the exhaustion radiating from her mind, dampening the frustration and the panic. “Where _is_ this guy? I need to end this.”

“Be careful! Keep your strength up!” he yells, but she’s tearing off in another direction.

The third, he sees the most remarkable thing. Alex is standing, sleeve rolled up to the elbow, watching her forearm. Because the ink on her arm is rippling, moving; the crow is taking flight. J’onn is aware of mobile tattoos, but not on Earth.

Alex’s head snaps up, fixing on a point over his shoulder. “Bingo.” She lifts the sword. “If I kill him, maybe I can stop the sandstorm.”

“Alex, wait!”

But she’s running.

 

**_Sara_ **

The doctors are all caught up, what with people’s life threatening injuries. So Sara takes the detective under her wing, deciding to go ahead and patch her up. She practically carries an unsteady Maggie into a quiet examination room, helping her onto the bed.

She swings the handle of a bucket Maggie’s way. “Still feeling whoozy, Sawyer?”

Maggie grimaces and takes the bucket, wedging it between her knees. “What did you mean that it wouldn’t be fair? If you told me anything else?”

_What is it you know and aren’t telling me?_

Sara chuckles, hearing the underlying question. She should know better than to think she would escape interrogation from a cop.  

She pulls over the steel tray of supplies, smacks on a pair of gloves and reaches up to peel away the gauze from Maggie’s head. She hisses softly, seeing the oozing blood, and the dried patches all around the curve of Maggie’s skull.

Maggie edges away from her, pointing at her splint. “Oh, woah. You aren’t stitching me up if you’ve got a wonky hand.”

“Relax, Maggie. I’ve done much more in much worse conditions.”

Maggie doesn’t look placated, but small rivulets of blood are seeping down her eyebrow, and Sara is a quick solution. She jerks her chin up, letting Sara get to work.

“We’ve met in the future, haven’t we?” Maggie pushes.

“No,” Sara relents, dropping the bloody gauze into a dish. “Otherwise, wouldn’t I have recognised you yesterday?”

_And yesterday feels so long ago_ , she thinks, gently cleaning the head wound.

“ _Could_ we meet in the future? Your future and my...” Maggie reels at the dabbing cotton, and then scrunches her nose. “No, you know what, my brain already got bashed once today.”

“Is this an interrogation, Detective?” Sara jokes.

“I don’t have the energy for that.”

Sara snorts.

As careful as she tries to be, the flinches from Maggie show how much pain the other woman is in. She works efficiently, suturing the head wound, hoping it will keep until one of the medical experts is finally free to check out the extent of the damage and, perhaps, do a better job of the stitching.

She pauses each time Maggie lurches. The detective spits in the bucket a few times, but Sara is impressed when she holds her stomach.

“Dizzy?” Sara asks, earning a groan.

_Not good..._

“Do you think we make it?” Maggie mutters.

Sara hates being pressed, but there is a vulnerability in the question. It shines in the dark eyes that look at her, and she sees something underneath the hard lines of a cop; there’s a youth, scared, wishing.

As much as she wants to take Maggie’s hand and tell her all about the conversation she had with Alex on Earth-X, _(or with Alex from 2021)_ , she knows it isn’t her place.

Finishing the stitching, she chooses a different path of comfort. Slowly, she peels off her rubber gloves, ignoring the twangs in her own banjaxed wrist.

“You ever had a woman call you the name of an ex in bed?” She steps back to take in her handywork.

Maggie seems disgruntled at the diversion, but shrugs a shoulder. “Yup. Once or twice.” Her lips twitch into a sheepish smile. “But I’ve slipped up and done it too, so maybe I deserved it.”

“Not pleasant,” Sara remarks, turning away. She scoops the silver bowl off of the tray, toeing open the peddle-bin marked _biohazard_ and throwing the gloves and used gauze inside. “I’ve never met someone named Maggie before, but I’ve been called it.”

When Sara turns back, Maggie’s eyes meet hers. She finds comprehension, followed by hope and then blossoming amusement. The detective grips the bucket. “Jesus, _Danvers_.”

Sara crosses to the sink. She runs the water and scrubs her hands with the soap, taking care not to irritate her injury. “We were both pretty wasted. I’m not even sure she remembers saying it.”

Maggie hops off the bed. “Thanks for cheering me up.”

As she dries off with paper towels, Sara thinks about Alex from 2021, about what she knows is laid out for this woman in front of her, and is reminded once again of the messy timeline of her _own_ life, nevermind someone else’s. She frowns.

“What?” Maggie asks.

“Being a time traveller is really trippy sometimes.”

Maggie swings the bucket off of the bed. “I bet-”

And then a figure pops into the doorway. Winn bounces on his toes, not quite looking at either of them directly. “You’re getting sent back to the city base.”

“What, why?”

He pales, saying, “This whole place is going to go down a few degrees so it’ll be a little cold for you. Operations are shifting to the city base.”

“Colder? Why the hell would you be turning down the temperature?” Sara asks.

Winn glances over his shoulder as two more body-bag loaded stretchers are carried down the hall. Maggie twigs before Sara, because she sees the detective raising her chin.

“Because the morgue here isn’t big enough,” Maggie says.

Winn nods jerkily. “Some of the rooms…”

He struggles, wincing, and Sara takes a deep breath. Maggie looks at her with a raised eyebrow- _but she still sees the underlying fear_.

“You got any of that scotch left?”

 

**_Lucy_ **

She’s bleeding and she’s limping, but she’s alive. It briefly enters her mind that she was just a military lawyer, once, before all of this. Of course the DEO would turn her into a fully fledged soldier.

People pass each other in the DEO like ghosts, drifting along. The surgeons have their hands deep in James’ chest, and the thought might have brought her breakfast up if she were a lesser woman. But she’s Sam Lane’s daughter, goddammit.

And if their hands are still in his chest, he’s alive.

She needs to check on everyone else now.

Lucy discovers Sara Lance sitting in one of the conference rooms. She raises her scotch in greeting.

Lucy leans against the doorway for a breather. There is another figure in a chair, slumped at the long conference table. _Sawyer lived. Good._ She wonders if Alex knows. If Alex is even still alive out there. Because if nothing else, she will go to her grave knowing that Maggie survived, and maybe that will give her peace at the end.

“Two bisexuals and a lesbian in the conference room of a secret government black ops organisation,” Sara says, lifting up the scotch. “There’s got to be a joke in there somewhere.”

Lucy shuffles into the room, keeping one hip as stiff as she can. “I didn’t tell you I was bisexual.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Sara purrs, running her eyes down Lucy’s hobbling frame. “You’re bleeding everywhere, Major Lane.”

“Share the damn scotch, Miss Lance,” Lucy grits, reaching within arms length of her.

“Any news on James?” Maggie asks, words muffled from her bent head.

Lucy throat squeezes. “Nothing yet.”

“I’m sorry for leaving him.” Quiet, self-deprecating.

“Are you kidding? You didn’t exactly choose to. I saw what happened.”

Maggie groans, and Lucy shifts around the table to get a better look at her. She sits with her head hanging between her knees, hands braced behind her cranium.

“Sawyer?” Lucy says, softer. Sara subtly taps her ear, and then nods to Maggie, and Lucy nods back, raising her voice just a smidge. “How’s your hearing?”

Maggie looks up. “Coming back. Still fuzzy. Got all stitched thanks to my babysitter here.”

“I’m keeping an eye on you because you could have a serious head injury, Maggie,” Sara scolds, like a parent with a petulant child.

“If blood starts running out of your ears and nose, we might have an issue,” Lucy says, ignoring the throbbing in her own temples. “And in that case, Alex is gonna take that sword and come after us for not looking after you.”

“I still love her, you know.” Maggie pauses after what Lucy supposes was an impulsive slip, and folds in on herself again, muttering, “Don’t know why I’m telling you that.”

Sara draws herself up, like she’s come up with an idea, and Lucy thinks its the same as the one germinating in her own mind.

“You know,” Lucy says, leaning her good hip on the table and gesturing for Sara to hand her the scotch. “I feel a little left out that I haven’t slept with Alex.”

“You should feel that way. It’s an experience,” Sara drawls, unscrewing the bottle, giving it to Lucy. “And coming from me, that’s a compliment.”

Maggie glares at them through her eyelashes. “Are you two trying to make my blood boil?”

“Yes,” Lucy admits, and takes a long pull of scotch, passing it back to Sara. “Because if you’re jealous and want to rip our heads off, then you aren’t thinking about the stabbing pains in your skull.”

“And your hearing must be improving,” Sara adds, denying her the scotch as Maggie makes a move for it. “Alcohol with a head injury? No, this room has enough self-destructive energy. Drink your water.”

Maggie sniffs at the cup in front of her, giving them a wry smile. “When this is all over, I’m taking you two for dinner. You seem pretty cool.”

“Is Alex invited?” Lucy asks, shifting her hip as the joint begins to burn.

“Sure.” Maggie drinks a small mouthful of the water in front of her, and then sighs. “We’re probably her fantasy foursome anyway.”

After her pass of the bottle, Lucy challenges, “Like you’d share, Sawyer.”

“True, I hate threesomes.” Maggie plays with the plastic cup. “Someone is always getting left out of what’s happening.”

“Not if there’s an even number,” Sara points out. She swirls the liquid, watching it slosh up the sides of the bottle. “Although I’m out of action until my wrist heals.”

Maggie twists in pain, putting her head down again. Lucy is hit with the worse case scenario, the one that their humour had temporarily lifted them from, and dread numbs all of the radiating injuries in her body. She had been brought to the DEO because they needed to prepare to fall back and defend the city, whatever was left of it after the fiery sandstorm.

The Hedozian was going to burn America, burn the Earth, starting with National City. And unless Alex succeeded...

Sara plants her feet as someone approaches, and Lucy tenses when she sees it’s J’onn. Behind her, Maggie crumples the cup in her hand. The atmosphere drops.

His face is grave.

Lucy looks first at Sara, and then back at Maggie.

Her face is ashen.

 

**_Kara_ **

The sandstorm is seconds out from the city perimeter when it loses momentum. Clark and Kara swing themselves around, hovering at National City’s limits, debating whether to fly back or continue on.

“What happened?” he yells.

The storm dies, falling away to nothing, the wind slowing until there is only calm. And still they remain suspended, waiting.

_“Supergirl? Can you hear me?”_

She presses a finger to her ear. “Winn?”

_“Supergirl, come back to the DEO. It’s over.”_

Those two words almost drop her out of the sky. _It’s over_.

Motioning to Clark, she flies towards the DEO, those words slashing at her every inch of the way. She pushes away crushing thoughts of what she might find when she gets there. Her friends dead, her _sister_ dead.

When she lands on the balcony, it’s Sara who intercepts her before she goes down into the DEO, gently taking her by the biceps and looking straight at her.

“Comms are back up. Survivors are coming back here.”

“I know, that’s why we came back.”

“But not everyone is here yet.”

Kara opens and closes her mouth. The exchange has her believing that they are having an entirely subtextual conversation, like the assassin is buying time. Sara has a knowing look on her face, like there’s something more, like she can see the questions buzzing in Kara’s mind.

She leans back, and fiddles with her pocket for a second. “That Winn guy told me to give this to you.”

She holds something in her fingertips, and Kara’s hand freezes in midair as she reaches for it.

It’s a key- _for Alex’s desk_.

“Alex?” she breathes.

“We don’t know anything yet. Lucy is instructing everyone to come here and form up for a debrief. Those who don’t need immediate medical assistance, anyway.”

Something about the way Sara is looking at her stirs doubt in Kara’s mind. _What aren’t you telling me?_

The key digs into her palm as a terrible, creeping idea comes to her.

“Where’s Maggie? Is she okay?” _Please, please, please-_

“She’s waiting on a CT scan for her nasty head bump. A lot of agents have more urgent injuries though, so she’s just taking it easy.”

_Thanks be to Rao._

Kara thinks about those notes, imagines the many reactions that Maggie could have if she has to give them to her. The only time she has seen her cry was when they fought to find Alex, and those were tears of rage. Perhaps Maggie has many more sides that Kara has not been privy to.

Maybe because she never made the effort to get that close.

She heads for Alex’s office, the DEO haunting for the daytime. It is an age since last night, when they sat here eating pizza and teasing each other. The garlic lingers in the air, the greasy boxes folded half-heartedly into the trash.

Her hand is shaking, the key going all around the drawer lock but not in. Eventually she slams it on the top of the desk in frustration, feeling frazzled.

And she catches sight of a picture frame.

Kara hasn’t noticed it on Alex’s desk before, mostly because the agent rarely uses her office, preferring to do all of her work in the lab. It is the two of them in Midvale, a selfie that Kara had suggested and Alex had groaned at.

She picks up the frame, cradling it in her hands, seeing the smile that Alex had begrudgingly given to the camera, and the sunny smile on her own face.

She doesn’t know for sure yet. She doesn’t.

She straightens up, puts down the frame, and walks out of the office, leaving behind the key. She needs to find out about James, Winn, J’onn, Lucy, Maggie. She needs to know they’re okay.

But just as she walks up the stairwell towards the balcony, the most incredible thing happens;

The sun breaks through. It _is_ over.

Outside, the sky brightens, the red fading away to a brilliant blue. The sun warms Kara’s face as she steps out, and in the distance, a dozen helicopters appear through the gaps in the skyscrapers. _These must be the survivors_ , she thinks, those who weren’t taken to the desert base. She has the sudden urge to fly towards them, to guide them on the last leg of their journey home.

She leaps onto the ledge and jumps.

She hopes Alex is on one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> The companion piece should be be up by next week, and if it isn't, come bully me on social media. If anyone is interested, I also have an idea for a tie-in regarding Sara and Alex from 2021; after all, what exactly was she hiding from Maggie?


End file.
